


skipping a beat

by crossedsabers10S



Series: cruelty has a human heart [2]
Category: The Lost Boys (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Multi, One Shot, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24043723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossedsabers10S/pseuds/crossedsabers10S
Summary: One shots from you can't stop the beat (of my heart) that may or may not show up in the story later.
Relationships: Carlisle Cullen/Esme Cullen, David/Michael Emerson (Lost Boys), David/Michael Emerson/Star, David/Star (Lost Boys), Edward Cullen/Bella Swan, Emmett Cullen/Rosalie Hale, Michael Emerson/Star (Lost Boys), Phil Dwyer/Renée Dwyer
Series: cruelty has a human heart [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734427
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so my computer is broken, I'm currently borrowing another. Just figured I'd leave these here. Oh, and to everyone who left kudos and comments on you can't stop the beat, thank you. You guys are great and I appreciate it!

“So,” Bella says, trying to make conversation. “How did you become a vampire, David?”

Rosalie freezes at the sheer stupidity Bella displayed. Asking someone how they were turned? Like it was regular dinner table conversation and not asking how someone had died and became a monster? And in most cases, how someone had been murdered and forcibly changed into a monster.

She’s two seconds away from throwing Esme’s fine china at Bella’s head when Edward sends her a warning look. Rosalie sneers at him. It’s not like it would hurt, and maybe Bella would understand that most vampires didn’t have fairy tales like desperate husbands saving their wives as they lay dying in their birthing beds. Most vampires died cold and alone and after the torture of the change didn’t wake to a miracle child and perfect bloodthirst control.

David doesn’t answer, just leans back in his chair. The rest of his little pack all abandon shoving food in their mouths and stiffen; perking up like wolves who’ve just seen first blood. 

Alice and Jasper were out hunting—the lucky ones. They had escaped Esme’s dinner plans. She and Emmett hadn’t been so fortunate. They had hunted yesterday and wouldn’t need to for some time. Esme had been so excited to have dinner guests that could actually eat her cooking. In her excitement she had wrangled everyone still in the house to attend. 

Carlisle, dear, compassionate Carlisle, tries to save dinner. “Have I ever told you of my own change, David?” he asks. 

Bella obviously doesn’t understand her faux pas, because she continues, “Oh, Carlisle told me Max changed you, is that right?” she asks, innocently, as if the blond vampire isn’t staring at her with a blank look and his mate next to him (it was obvious that’s what Michael was, even if Rosalie’s dearest and only niece has inherited her mother’s observational skills) isn’t glaring at her with murder in his eyes. 

Yes. Bella is so observant, Rosalie directs the sarcastic thought to Edward and watches him wince. 

David blinks slowly and Bella realizes that something is wrong by now. “Yes,” he says. “Max made me.” He sends a considering look at Carlisle. “Although, I don’t think he ever gave you the full story.”

Carlisle shakes his head, wary of the appraising look David is sending his way. “No. He only ever said that he had met you and you impressed him so much he immediately decided to have you for a son.”

“It was something like that,” David agrees, but Rosalie can see the tension in his eyes. 

Carlisle takes this for consent and continues on the topic. “I had thought it proved us more similar in mind, to refer to our covens as family.”

“Yeah,” Paul says, a bitter look twisting his face. “Max was big on family.”

Carlisle doesn’t know how to respond to that. Rosalie is just about to decide the topic settled when Bella pipes up again. 

“How did you impress him?” she asks. “I can’t see how a human could impress a vampire.”

Edward turns to his eternal love. “You impressed me all the time, love,” he gushes, as if human Bella had been anything but a clumsy walking trouble magnet. At least turning her had fixed the clumsiness. 

“Oh, Edward,” Bella sighs, sappiness dripping from her expression.

Rosalie is almost thankful when David interrupts their love-fest, but then she quickly isn’t when she hears what he’s saying. 

“I came home from hunting to see my family lying dead and Max finishing off my little sister,” David informs them, and all other dinner conversation grinds to a halt. He continues with a pleasant tone, like he was relating the results of a baseball game and not the grisly murder of his family, “I tried to kill him. He was impressed because I managed to draw blood.”

Esme gasps, hand over her mouth and reaches for Carlisle’s hand. Carlisle reaches back, still staring at David in shock. The very idea that his old friend had done such a thing…

Rosalie and Emmett are both silent and she reaches for her husband’s hand. Emmett envelopes it in his own. She knew that Emmett had had human sisters. He had told her about them, about their likes and dislikes and dreams. Rosalie also knew that having to leave his family behind when he became a vampire was one of the hardest things her husband had ever done. 

And Bella still hasn’t learned her lesson, because she asks again, curiosity plain in her voice, “He turned you because you hurt him?”

David keeps his eyes locked onto Carlisle’s. “No,” he corrects. “He turned me because he said I was a loyal and dutiful son. And that when I was his son, he would expect the same loyalty.”

“And you stayed with him?” Bella asks, suddenly indignant, as if the news that Max had killed David’s family and then David himself had just hit her. “If someone had killed Charlie…”

“Isabella!” Esme reprimands.

Rosalie will admit to curiosity on the topic as well, but she’d never be so rude as to ask! If someone had talked to her about her turning that way she would have ripped off a few appendages as a reminder of manners. Edward obviously catches that thought, because he’s suddenly glaring at David like he had already threatened Bella.

David only tilts his head at her, even as the rest of his pack’s faces are outraged. Dwayne and Paul both have a hand on Michael, who was staring at Bella with violence in every line of his body. Marko is watching Carlisle, the way the good doctor’s face is twisted in pained disbelief. “You think I had a choice?” he asks.

“You were a newborn,” Bella insists, “surely you could have outran him!”

Carlisle clears his throat. “No. He couldn’t have. Their species gains strength with age. Just turned, he would have been stronger than a human, but not by much.” He still looks as if his world had been shaken, if not upended entirely. Rosalie knew that Carlisle was a good man, and he saw that same good in others. His nature wouldn’t allow for anything less. To hear that someone who he had believed to hold the same values he did had committed such acts comparable to the worst of their kind, it was not a kind thing to hear.

“You didn’t know,” Edward tries to console him, but Carlisle shakes his head. 

Bella shakes her own head in denial. “Still!”

That proves to be the final straw for Michael, because he growls at her, a low, animalistic sound. Blue eyes turn yellow and he tenses further. “What the hell, lady!?”

Bella turns her attention to him, even as Edwards gives his own best attempt at a growl to the Ghoul. “Do not disrespect my wife,” the mind-reader commands. Rosalie snorts at his intimidation attempt. Edward had been sickly and dying when he was turned. He was slender, even for a seventeen year old. 

Michael doesn’t so much as glance at him, yellow eyes boring into Bella’s self-righteous skull. 

“Michael,” David says, and Rosalie watches Michael settle back into his seat, eyes returning to blue. But he doesn’t stop glaring at an increasingly confused looking Bella. Poor dear didn’t seem to grasp that bringing up sore topics will make people angry with you. “I don’t know how it is for daywalkers,” he addresses her, and Rosalie is impressed with both the iciness of his voice and the way his expression remains polite, “but for us, blood is everything. It’s hard to go against the one who sired you, especially for the first decade or two.”

“Or three,” Dwayne adds, eyes dark.

Bella lets her hair fall over her face and Rosalie knew that if she was still human she’d be blushing like a lamppost. Everyone had been too indulgent with her; first when she was human, in respect for her fragileness and Edward’s protectiveness, and then when she was a vampire, due to the chaos of her change and Renesmee’s birth. No one had given her the basics on how to interact with other covens, the predicament with the Volturi taking priority. And after, when things had settled down, no one thought to explain to Bella about the things you just didn’t bring up unless given permission.

Rosalie wishes she was human, even more so than usual. Just so she could be sipping tea right now to hide her smirk. Sadly, her days of hiding her entertainment at drama behind teacups were over. Blood bags just didn’t have the same class.

Emmett sends her a quietly amused look and she gives him a delicate shrug. She always enjoys seeing Miss Special and the Golden Boy brought down a peg. Or two.

“You could at least try not to look like you’re enjoying this,” he mutters to her, too low for the others to hear.

She gives him a smile. “I could,” she agrees, voice equally as low.

He snorts at her.

“You’re looking surprised, doc,” Marko says, effectively shifting the attention to himself. “Didn’t think dear ol’ Max was capable?”

“No,” Carlisle says, voice unreadable. “I didn’t.”

Esme’s face is a mix of horrified and affronted. “Did Max turn you all in such a terrible way?” Paul shrugs at her and all Dwayne does is give her a solemn look. Marko doesn’t even look at her. It’s enough for Esme to draw her own conclusions and she gives a resolute nod. “Then I will withdraw my condolences for his death. And perhaps offer my congratulations…?” she trails off, the obvious question now in the air. If Max had indeed been so horrible to the ghoul pack, what hand did they play in his death?

David tips his head at her. “Oh, no. We didn’t have that honor. That was all on Michael’s little family,” he says, with vicious pride on his face. 

“Good on you,” Emmett says, and Rosalie knows he means it. 

Michael doesn’t look pleased at the reminder. “Asshole wanted to turn my mom,” he explains, face aggrieved. “He wanted me and my brother turned so she’d go along with it. We didn’t appreciate it.” That seemed like an understatement, considering that Max was very dead.

And Rosalie bets that there was far more to the story than that. For one, Michael was sitting here a vampire, and seemed to hold no ill will towards his condition. In fact, Rosalie thinks, considering, despite the apparent circumstances behind their changes, none of the ghouls seemed to have a problem with their species. Rosalie had met those of her kind that reveled in being what they are—strong and fast and immortal—but seldom has she known any that reveled in life as much as these boys did, despite not being alive. 

“How did humans kill a vampire?” Bella asks, her bewilderment written all over her face.

Michael stares at her like she just sprouted fur. “What, do you guys not get hunters up here or something?”

Rosalie knows that some humans hunt their kind, but the Cullens very rarely had to deal with them. Between Edward, Alice, and the fact that as vegetarians they don’t leave a trail of bodies behind them, hunters have had little reason or chance to come upon them. The last one had been, oh, a decade or so before they met Bella. A young man who had noticed something off about them at school. His suspicions had been getting a little too pointed, and Alice had seen some of his investigation attempts, They had moved within the week.

“No,” Carlisle tells him. “We seldom draw enough attention to ourselves to be noticed by those who would hunt us. And if we do, then either Edward or Alice’s gifts give us forewarning.”

“Huh, handy,” is all he says to that. “And we got lucky,” he tells Bella. “Max underestimated us.” 

Paul wrinkles his nose and shakes his head like a wet dog. “Not the only one,” he mumbles.

Dwayne raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t like your bath?”

Paul glares at him. “Shut up. Don’t you still hate INXS?” 

Dwayne loses his composed expression. “Yes, he growls.

Marko snickers at them. “No need to be all pissy just because you two got your asses owned by a few baby humans.” 

“Like you can talk,” Paul reminds him, huffily. “Your ass was the first one that got shanked!”

“At least I didn’t get taken down by a dog,” Marko shoots back, flipping Paul the bird. Paul copies the gesture and Rosalie sees the way Esme shakes her head at them.

“Nah,” Michael says, smirk on his face. “Just a couple of Frogs.”

“Shut up, Mikey! You’re lucky you’re pretty or David woulda been a lot more pissed about the antler thing.” 

Michael’s smirk is replaced by a wince. He rubs at his neck, the motion ruffling his clothing enough to reveal a ragged bitemark on par with some of Jasper’s nastier scars. “He was plenty pissed,” he says.

David looks smug. “Learned your lesson, didn’t you?”

Michael looks at him askance. “Sure. Sure I did.”

Rosalie decides that she doesn’t want to know. 

“So, how did a bunch of humans take down a vamp?” Emmett asks, gleefully interested. Rosalie only rolls her eyes at her husband’s exuberance towards fight stories. 

David laughs, the sound cruel. “Max got himself staked by an old man. Well, Michael helped.”

“He got impaled by a car and then he caught fire,” Michael clarifies.

“Ooh,” Emmett says. “What kind of car?”

“Emmett,” Edward scolds. “This is hardly dinner table conversation.”

“Hey,” Emmett protests, “I didn’t start it.”

“Regardless.” Edward wraps an arm around Bella’s shoulders. Bella leans into him and Rosalie represses the urge to sigh at the wounded doe eyes she’s sporting.


	2. her name is...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Paul being Paul and Leah restraining herself from ripping out his undead throat.

Paul is leaning against the wall, his thumbs in his pockets when Leah walks into the house. He watches her stride past him, not sparing him a glance beyond a single icy glare, and lets his gaze drop to her perfectly toned ass, which is showcased by some tiny ragged shorts. He wolf whistles. 

“So you’re the she-wolf, huh.” He sidles up beside her. 

Leah doesn’t even look at him, just keeps walking straight to the fridge where Esme prepared lunch for the pack, who had picked up some extra patrols around the Cullen house due to Jake’s paranoia over the new leeches around his imprint. 

“I don’t sleep with leeches,” she informs him dispassionately, but her shoulders are tense at his proximity and her hands are fisted by her sides. 

If her words were in any way discouraging, Paul doesn’t show it. “Who said anything about sleeping?” Paul leers, eyes still glued to her ass.

Leah stops right at the edge of the kitchen. She whirls around and jams a finger into the grinning vampire’s chest. 

“No,” she growls.

Paul steps back, his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I got you. But if you ever change your mind…”

Leah had already stomped away. She angrily opens the fridge and yanks out a package of sandwiches. “I won’t,” she assures him, and stalks off with her prize clutched in her hands.

... 

“Hey, Rio!”

Leah looks like she’s regretting asking even as, “I know you know that’s not my name. Why?”  
Paul shrugs, smile never leaving his face. “You know. Rio. Like Duran Duran. Hungry Like the Wol—”

“And I’m out.”

Leah leaves. 

Paul watches he go with a dreamy look before he shoots Marko a grin. “She’s so into me.”

“Sure, buddy.” Marko nods from where he’s watching ESPN next to Emmett on the couch. “Sure she is.” Well, Emmett was watching ESPN. Marko had a mirror in one hand and some kind of bottle in the other. 

Emmett shakes his head. “Leah’s going to shift and eat you one day, you know that, right?”

“Worth it,” Paul says.

Emmett pulls a face. “She’s hot, but I don’t know who you stand the wet dog smell.”

Marko answers him. “Paul smells way worse, he probably can’t even tell.”

“Like you have any room to talk, pigeon-shit!”


	3. What happens in Santa Carla...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild Renee appears! 
> 
> Had this rattling around in my head for awhile. Thought I'd share.

Bella POV

“Bella!” Renee wraps her arms around me and squeezes, her human warmth a contrast to my icy skin. I carefully hug her back, giving her the gentlest of touches so that I don’t accidentally crush her with my strength.

I let the hug go one until the need to breathe becomes uncomfortable. I step back and carefully inhale once I’m further away from the source of her delicious human scent. My throat burns with thirst, but I affix a smile to my face despite the pain. Renee always smells like sunshine. Like fresh leaves out in the summer heat.

She’s changed, I think, looking her over. Her hair is still cut short and curls around her face, but there are new streaks of sun-blonde and gray in it, and her tan has deepened; the golden brown of her skin a stark difference to my alabaster paleness. 

“Mom,” I say, “it’s good to see you again.” And possibly for one of the last times I will be able to meet her face to face. It’s becoming obvious I wasn’t aging, but I have a few years before it becomes more than a question of having good genes. “But what are you doing here so early?” She wasn’t supposed to arrive before next week. 

Actually, she wasn’t supposed to arrive at all. But someone had told her that we were back in Forks and she had immediately arranged a visit. Every excuse I tried to feed her about why it wasn’t an optimal time had been blithely ignored, and so we had ended up plotting to arrange things so that the house would be mostly empty for when she showed up. 

“I heard that Nessie was sick!” she tells me, the crow’s feet around her eyes crinkling in concern. “I flew down here as soon as I heard, I brought grandma’s chicken soup recipe.” And Alice still couldn’t see well enough around Renesmee and the ghouls to warn us. She begins to dig through the giant white purse she brought. “Or at least I thought I did,” she says, rifling through what looks like a collection of receipts and loose change. 

“Oh,” I say. “That’s—who told you Renesmee was sick?” I ask. The last thing we needed was my human mother trying to preform her grandmotherly duties while we had a gang of human drinking vampires around the house. It was dangerous. She wouldn’t stand a chance if one of them lost control, and I did not want to even try to explain to my mother why one of Carlisle’s guests tried to eat her. 

How would we even explain their presence? David and his boys very much did not fit in with how the rest of the Cullens presented themselves. 

“Charlie did,” she answers, still peering into the depths of her purse. “I was on the phone with him and he said that Sue said that Leah said—“

They had been talking? I mentally shake my head to clear my thoughts and focus on the important part: Leah. Great. Maybe I can ask Jacob to have a word with her about spreading what should have been classified information. 

I tune back into Renee’s babbling. 

“—and that’s why I’m down here. It’s always scary when your baby gets sick, so I’d thought I’d help out. Just a bit!” She looks up, abandoning her search to smile at me reassuringly. “And maybe after she’s better we can hang out, maybe even drive down to the beach. We might get lucky and get some sun!”

I try my best to smile at her enthusiasm. “That sounds fun,” I tell her, and carefully keep all my hopes of the next week being nothing but rain off of my face. 

And she must somehow sense my unenthusiastic aura, because her expression drops and she says, “Or I could babysit?” she offers. “I’m sure you and Edward miss having alone time. It wouldn’t be any trouble for me to look after Nessie for a few—“

“No, no, we’re fine.” I cut her off. “You don’t have too.”

Renee blinks at me. “...if you’re sure,” she says hesitantly. “I know little kids can be a handful—not from you of course,” she assures me. “I worked at a daycare for a while a few months ago and let me tell you, those kids never ran out of energy!” Despite the complaint, she’s grinning and there’s a childish sparkle in her eyes. She probably had fun playing with people in her mental age range.

Right, Remesmee was supposed to be seven right now, instead of the seventeen she appears. I back track. “It’s fine, Esme helps out sometimes, Rosalie and Alice too.”

She swallows. The human noise loud and grating on my ears. “Oh.” A look of hurt flashes across her face for a millisecond before confusion replaces it. “But I thought that Carlisle and Esme are living in Oregon now? And I’m sure that someone mentioned to me that Emmett and Rosalie were on their honeymoon. In Scandinavia?” She narrows her eyes at me and crosses her arms over her chest. “Bella?” she says, in a tone of voice I’ve rarely heard from her. 

“Oh, look at the time,” I flash a quick look at my phone, the screen still black. “I think Edward should be home soon, maybe we should wait inside?”

I grab her by her hand and I carefully tug her towards the house. We pass by the open garage, a row of five motorcycles resting inside. I roll my eyes at it; that’s Edwards' spot, but the ghoul pack have commandeered it for their precious bikes—like they can’t just get new ones on the off chance those rust. Esme let’s those boys get away with too much, just because they put up with her mothering tendencies. She stalls and I stop tugging at her, mildly worried I’ll rip her arm off if I pull any harder. 

“I didn’t know you still rode, Bella,” she says, voice strange. I tilt my head at her, but whatever mood has taken her she shakes it off. “Now, will you tell me what’s going on?” she demands, turning her back to the bikes. 

I smile at her. “Nothing’s going on,” I lie, and start ushering her into the house. 

“Right,” she says, sarcasm thick in her voice, but let’s me pull her away from the garage. 

I escort her inside, ignoring her protests all the way until we get to the living room. 

“Renee!” Esme sweeps in from the direction of the kitchen, a plate of cookies in her hands. “So good to see you again, and you’re here early.” She holds the tray out. “Cookie?”

Renee reaches for one before she remembers she was angry. She stops and shakes her head. “Esme, it’s good to see you too, I didn’t know you were in state.” She turns a look at me that I pretend I don’t see. “I flew up here to check in on my granddaughter, Charlie told me she was sick and I haven’t seen her in ages,” she says pointedly, “so I thought I’d pop by.”

“Oh, us too,” Esme says, and I mentally thank her and the fact that she probably heard us talking outside. “Carlisle and I had some time off, you see, and we had the same idea. How have you been?” she keeps talking, pushing the tray towards Renee and my mother automatically grabs a cookie. 

I catch Esme’s attention and mouth ‘ghouls?’ at her while Renee tells her about Phil’s newest tournament team as politely as she can around the cookie in her mouth. 

Esme hums attentively even as she widens her eyes at me and jerks her head to the staircase, the motion too fast for Renee to see. 

I nod at her and deliberately lower my shields, knowing that Edward was in range by now. I think of the situation, each memory as clear as a photograph in my mind and hope he’s paying attention. 

My phone rings two seconds later. I answer it. 

“Bella, love,” Edwards says to me, and I can feel the tension melt from my body at the sound of his voice, even if some of the impact is dissipated by it being over the phone.

“Edward,” I greet, human-loud for my mother’s benefit, but she’s not paying me any attention, too distracted by Esme’s hostess skills. 

I take care to keep my voice low as we speak. He promises to be home soon, and to send Jasper and Alice ahead of him. I assure him that everything was under control. I can handle my mother being here. 

Everything was going well: Renee was off the scent, her being well and truly distracted by Rosalie and Esme’s efforts. Renesmee was still secluded upstairs with Jasper and Alice who were generously “babysitting.” (In reality, I suspect Jasper was reading while Alice quizzed Renesmee on the latest fashions.) Jake had slunk in, covered in mud and missing a shirt, but present; and hopefully human-passing enough to even out the rest of us. He'd quickly left again after I had reassured him that all was well. The ghouls were distracted, Esme had slipped away to provide them with enough food to put a human into a coma and I could hear the familiar thumps and swearing that signaled they were busy doing... whatever it was they did when we weren’t around. I pictured it as a cross between a Volturi meeting and a human frat party. 

Yes, everything was going well. Renee was tiring, her jet lag finally kicking in, and I was ready to shuffle her off to a guest bedroom so we could convene and discuss what we were going to do about the fragile human in our midst. 

And then David pokes his head into the room. “Mrs. C, you’ve got to stop giving Paul cookies unless you never want him to leave.” He sends her a wry glance. “In which case: I wish you luck.” 

Rosalie gives Esme her own look, one that leaves no room to doubt exactly what she thinks of that possibility. 

He comes fully into the room—for once without his entourage, and he’s missing his leather coat too—and puts an empty platter on the kitchen counter. 

Esme moves to take it, but is interrupted by an intake of breath. 

Renee is standing frozen, her back to the kitchen, and every vampire in the room hears her heartbeat pick up from a steady rhythm to something more suited to a rabbit being stared down by a snake. 

“That’s not—“ she cuts herself off and whirls around, motions stiff and jerky like a marionette with its strings too tight. Her heartbeat triples in speed as soon as her eyes focus on his face. 

David tilts his head at her. “Dinner guest?” he asks, with an idle smile in her direction. There’s something cruel in it though, and I realize that to him my mother would very much be dinner instead of guest. Renee’s heart stutters. 

“In-law,” Rosalie drawls, even as she looks between Renee and the bleach blond with bored interest.

I’m debating taking a step forward, to put myself in between him and Renee. It might tip her off that something is wrong, but maybe I can play it off as me being clumsy. 

“David?” my mother says, voice lost somewhere between distraught and disbelieving. Her hands shake at her sides and she sways a bit as she stands, like the ground suddenly isn’t enough to keep her upright. 

David? I remain frozen in place, watching the scene in front of me. She knows his name? 

Renee shakes her head back and forth rapidly. “No,” she says, and squeezes her eyes shut. “This isn’t—it’s not...”

“Renee?” Esme’s hand lingers in the air over my mother’s shoulder like she’s hesitant to touch her. 

Renee gulps audibly and takes a single step back. 

David is watching her with interest, blue eyes tracking every twitch and I’m reminded of a cat stalking a bird. This time I do step forwards, placing myself between them, blocking that hunter’s gaze. 

He just leans around me. “Have we met before?” he asks her, politely curious, and she lets out a bark of laughter, the sound tinged with hysteria. 

She doesn’t answer him. “You’re dead,” she tells him, volume barely above a whisper. “We killed you!” Her voice louder now, not screaming, but close. Rosalie draws closer to her, even as I see her flinch at the sound. “Why are you back? Why are you here?” She’s pleading, eyes locked on him even as she shakes. 

He gives her a once over, eyebrows drawn together like he’s searching for something. Whatever he’s looking for he seems to find it. David blinks at her in shock. “Star?” he asks, shocked recognition in his voice. His eyes widen, and his lips part; a second later and all emotion is wiped from his face like it had never existed, but all the immortals in the room caught it. 

“David,” Renee replies warily. She’s staring at him like he’s a nightmare come to life, but she’s yet to take her eyes off his face and there’s a dreamy quality to her voice underneath the fear. 

“David,” Esme says, “you know Renee?” Her tone is measured and even, but I see the way she wraps an arm around Renee’s waist. Renee shudders at the contact, but it seems to ground her. 

Renee edges closer to Esme, but I watch my flighty, scatterbrained mother put herself in-front of an immortal, mostly indestructible vampire like she’s trying to protect her. She motions towards me, a quick jerk of her hand and a pleading look in my direction, but I remain where I am. I can take care of myself; I don’t need to hide behind a fragile human. I catch Rosalie’s glare out of the corner of my eye and send my own stern look her way. Let her take care of Renee, even if Rosalie showing compassion towards a human surprises me.

David drags his eyes away from Renee, still darting glances at her now and again like she’s something fascinating he’s studying under a microscope, and gives Esme a half shrug. “Can’t say I’ve ever met a Renee,” he says, and I almost want to punch him at his flippant tone. I deserve some answers! Renee was still clinging to Esme and Rosalie has discretely edged her way in front of the both of them. “But I knew a Star once,” he says, and we all watch the way my mother flinches at the name. 

I take that in and exchange with a startled look with Esme. I know my mom had some hippie roots—she really did miss her calling as a flower child—but I’ve never heard anyone call her Star before. 

“Mom?” The word slips out before I can control myself, but my curiosity overflows. 

Renee seems to come back to herself at the sound of my voice and she jerks in place, looking frantically between where I’m standing and David. “Why are you here?” she repeats, harder than last time, and I’m taken aback by the steel in her voice. 

He ignores her, instead tipping his head back at the ceiling. “Boys,” he says, voice conversational, but I hear the way everything stills upstairs, the murmur of voices and the occasional thump coming to a stop. “Down here,” he orders, still causal, but he obviously expects to be obeyed. Renee shudders again at the sound of it. I see her eyes dart to the door. 

In less than half a minute the four other ghouls file down the stairs and come to a stop standing behind their leader. 

“Finally out of cookies?” Dwayne asks, voice easygoing, but his eyes are scanning the room. His eyes linger on Renee for a second, and the protective way Rosalie and Esme hover around her. I can’t blame the way his eyes skip over Renee after noting her humanity. In a room full of vampires, one human is not a threat. 

Paul is sending Esme pleading eyes and I can’t help the flash of amusement I get when I see the way her eyes soften at his puppy dog face. 

Marko and Michael aren’t even looking our way; Marko is fiddling with his jacket and Michael’s eyes are.....I’m glad I can’t blush anymore, because I would have at the way he’s staring at David’s back, gaze definitely directed below the waist. 

Renee chokes on air at the sight of them and my attention snaps back to my mother. 

“Michael?” she breathes, barely audible even to my enhanced hearing. 

Michael hears her too, because he finally looks away from David to stare curiously at her, no recognition on his face. 

“Don’t you remember Star, Michael?” David asks him, and slings an arm around the brunet’s shoulders. “I know it’s been awhile...”

At that, Michael’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise and his mouth falls open. Paul stops sending puppy eyes at Esme, gaping at Renee instead. Marko looks up from his jacket, only giving Renee a brief glance, instead staring at my face with a concentration that would have been disconcerting had I been human. 

Dwayne only turns his head towards David, and whatever look David gives him in return seems to settle something for him, he relaxes a tension I don’t notice he’d had and instead focuses on studying Renee’s face. 

For her part, Renee seems to have forgotten how to breathe. Her eyes flit between Michael and the rest of them, often lingering on his face. Disbelief and dawning horror paint her features. 

“Star?” Michael asks her, with an odd expression. Half hopeful, half disbelieving. 

“Yeah?” she responds, but seems to catch herself. She shakes her head. “No, no, it’s Renee. My name. I’m not Star, not anymore.”

“Renee?” Michael repeats, smiling at her. “Renee’s great. I like Renee.”

Renee looks like she’s staring at a ghost. “Me too,” she says, voice weak. 

They stare at each other until, each studying the other’s face until Paul breaks the moment. 

“You got old,” he blurts out, like he can’t believe it. 

Marko takes a break from staring at me to punch Paul’s shoulder. “Duh.” 

Renee drags her gaze away from Michael with visible effort. “Paul,” she acknowledges. She takes in his youthful face. “You didn’t,” she says. Sweeping her gaze over the rest of them, she continues, something bitter in her voice and in her eyes when she looks Michael’s way, “None of you did.”

David gives her a lazy shrug. “Hey, you had the opportunity.” There was something pitying in how he looked at my mother, but when I look again it’s gone. 

At this I cut it. “Mom,” I say, voice demanding, “you know them?”

At this point that was obvious, but I needed to know why my mother—my human, sunshine loving mother—knew a pack of vampires by name.

Renee jumps like she’s forgotten I was present. “Bella,” she says, instead of answering me. “What are they doing here?” she interrogates.

“I—They…” I don’t have an answer ready for her, not one that would make sense. 

“Do you even know what they are?” she asks, and I gape at her.

“You know about vampires?!” I ask her, incredulous. Esme is also looking at her in surprise. Rosalie is looking like someone who has just been told a new soap opera is on. I narrow my eyes at her, but all she does is smirk at my vexation. I huff and cross the room, turning my back to the ghouls and making my way to my mother.

Renee shakes her head at me. “You know what they are and you still…” She tenses. Esme murmurs at her soothingly, but she doesn’t calm. “Oh God, and Renesmee is upstairs, why would you—”

“Chill out, Star,” David says, annoyed now with her panicking. My mother immediately obeys. “We’re not here to hurt anybody.”

Defiance sparks at that. “I don’t believe you,” she tells him, anger in her eyes. He laughs at her. 

“We won’t hurt you, Star—Renee. Sorry.” Michael elbows David in the side. All of David’s amusement is wiped off of his face and he sends Michael a sharp look. Michael ignores it, instead sending a reassuring smile my mother’s way. 

“Mom.” I grab at her arm, and this time she flinches at the coolness of my skin. Something dawns on her. “Why are they calling you Star?” I ask, ignoring the way her eyes catch on my own golden ones. Usually human’s eyes will skip over them, uncomfortable looking too closely. My mother was the same, until now. Now she stares into my inhuman eyes and I can see moment she realizes. 

“Oh, Bella,” she sighs. “I’m so sorry, baby. I should have told you, should have warned you.”

Rosalie gives a rude snort. “Like that would have done anything,” she mutters. I glare at her, but thankfully it doesn’t appear that Renee heard anything. She quiets at Esme’s disapproving look.


	4. what the cats drag in

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit and pieces of Lost Boys interactions. That's all.

Dwayne drops the body of the girl who made the mistake of thinking that a vampire made a good pickpocketing target. He makes sure to pull his smokes from her pocket first, though. 

“Wow,” Marko floats past him, sitting upside down in the air. “She must’ve really pissed you off, Dwanye-y. Usually you leave most of the limbs attached.”

Dwayne shrugs at him and flicks a piece of gore off his jacket shoulder. 

“Guys, guuuuys,” Paul slurs, stumbling up to them with a wide grin on his fanged face. “I think mine was an alien.”

Marko snickers at the way he almost tumbles over when he comes to a stop. “What, she have an extra eye or something?”

Dwayne grabbed Paul’s shoulder to steady him before he tipped over. 

“Nooooo,” Paul slurs,” but she sure tasted outta this world!” Dwayne instantly lets go of him. “Oh fuck!” he says when he hits the ground. “Owwww, I think I landed on a bone.”

Dwayne shakes a cigarette out of the carton and lights it with a blood stained zippo. 

“I wonder what that chick was on?” Marko ponders, flipping right-side up. “Think there’s any left?”

Dwayne shakes his head and points at Paul’s meal, which was currently being dragged into the water by the tide.

“Crap.”

Michael looks around the new lair, unimpressed. It didn’t have the flair of their sunken hotel. It was the cellar of an abandoned house in South Park. The pack had liberated it from a drug dealer and had done their best to secure all the entrances in case of any vengeful daytime visitors.   
Broken crates lined one of the walls and the only lighting was a dim bulb that flickered on the end of its string. A moth-eaten couch was propped against the far wall and they had dragged a bed down the narrow staircase. It stood in the middle of the room, piled high with blankets and more pillows than some motels had. 

“I hear mice.” Dwayne drops down from the top of a crate pile.

“So, someone’s going to have to catch a cat,” Paul brushes it off from where he’s lying on the couch, feet propped up on the back and head hanging off the cushions. 

Marko pops up from the pile of pillows and blankets. “A cat?” he asks. “Dibs on naming it!”

“Hell no,” Michael denies. “I know what you call your pigeons and I refuse to have a cat that answers to something like Wimbledon Matthias the Scourge.”

“What’s wrong with Wimbledon?” Marko pouts.

“Everything,” Michael retorts, nose wrinkled.

“I say we name it Pussy,” Paul suggests. 

Marko throws a pillow, it lands on Paul’s face. “Lame,” he says.

“Hey.” Paul’s complaint is muffled by the pillow. He sits up and the pillow hits the ground. “Hey,” he repeats, voice more considering, “what did we do with all the heroin we found?”

“Found?” Michael snorts.

“Alright, stole. Although if we killed them first, that makes it ours, right?”

“Don’t think the police see it that way,” Michael says, fake-thoughtful. 

“Who cares what they think?”


End file.
